Tucker receives a quick one in "Double Cross My Heart" when Sam's new crush, who seemed to be a nice guy, shows his true colors when he snaps at Tucker.

"Dude, do you EVER stop talking?! Do you even know how obnoxious you are with your stupid jokes and your lame-o technology?! IDIOT!"

Danny delivers an extremely harsh one towards Jazz in "Secret Weapons"; calling her a lousy ghost hunter, an overbearing sister and an obnoxious know-it-all who should mind her business. This ends up making her run away and cry, leaving several students who were overhearing to glare at him over it.

Reunion Revenge: Vlad subverts it in that he threw the reunion at his mansion in order to get back at Jack for the accident that gave him powers and for marrying the girl of his dreams who never noticed him at all in the first place apparently.

Retcon: Sam being incredibly good at physical education in Micromanagment, despite complaining about Tucker's plan to distract the ghost hunters in Million Dollar Ghost including her having to exercise.

Maddie with Vlad (rich) and Jack (poor/middleclass) although Maddie appears to have married Jack before Vlad became rich and is disgusted by his attempts to woo her now and clearly would have choosen Jack over Vlad's money even in other situations.

In the episode Memory Blank, Sam wishes she never met Danny, not realizing it would be granted. As a result both Tucker and Danny don't know Sam. Not only that but while in Danny's pictures of him and his 2 friends, Sam is missing, however Sam's pictures still has both Danny and Tucker. It helped that Sam was still wearing the Specter Deflector belt when the wish was made, that kept Desiree's magic from affecting her.

Some of his attacks don't even make sense. For example, in "Urban Jungle" he creates a snowball—with Eye Beams, no less—then puts some ghost energy in it, and throws it at the villain, which pops a hole in his chest. Fair enough. But then the villain, almost immediately after healing himself, explodes from the inside with ice energy...and all of this from one snowball?

In Livin' Large, Danny takes a jump and Goes Ghost mid-spin then flies to go save the Ghost Zone. Because he can.

Screw Destiny: Danny in The Movie, in which he is shown a future where he's the Big Bad. Chillingly, he doesn't mind until he finds out that his whole family, his friends, and (far less importantly) his English teacher died because of him. He changed his tune right quick, then.

Fright Knight was sealed away inside a pumpkin, and was released first by Danny himself (accidently), and later by Pariah Dark so that he could act as The Dragon.

Pariah Dark was sealed away to free the Ghost Zone from his tyranny.

Vlad seems particularly fond of releasing these - he released Pariah Dark unintentionally, and then later on intentionally releases Vortex on the world and then quickly loses control of him.

Any ghost trapped in the Fenton Thermos. Temporary, but still sealed away.

Technically not a can, but Pandora's box definitely qualifies.

Secret Identity Apathy: Most of Danny's villains already know his secret identity from the start; he's well-known in the Ghost Zone for being half-ghost. However, in the episode Flirting With Disaster, Technus warns Danny against transforming and battling him in the open by motioning to a security camera, saying that Danny has a secret identity to protect. Technus is already taking advantage of Danny's civilian identity in this episode, so his reasons for stopping Danny from fighting is to screw with him and his new girlfriend Valerie.

Secret Keeper: Sam and Tucker; Jazz is the asymmetrical version for a while.

Speaking of "Reality Trip", the whole movie revolves around the villain Freakshow assembling magical gems to be placed into the Reality Gauntlet that, when complete, allows the bearer to rewrite reality at his whim. This is a huge reference to the Marvel story The Infinity Gauntlet, only with Freakshow in place of Thanos, and three gems instead of five.

Ghost Rays in general look like the energy blasts from Dragon Ball, even the way Danny fires the extra-strong ones looks like a Kamehameha.

The chariot race in "King Tuck" is a reference to the famous scene in Ben-Hur, complete with Messala's wheel-cutting spoke spikes.

There are also a few shout-outs to Back to the Future. Marty McFly himself appears in a brief, pause-or-you'll-miss-it cameo in "Masters of All Time" and "Splitting Images". Also doubles as an Actor Allusion, as Danny's voice actor, David Kaufman, previously voiced Marty in the 90's Back to the Future cartoon. George McFly's book "A Match Made in Space" is seen in "Double Cross My Heart". And the coolest; the clock tower in the University of Madison (in "Masters of All Time") reads 10:04.

There's an obvious nod in the episode "Lucky in Love" to Gone with the Wind. The Once per Episode title card was a parody of the famous movie poster of Rhett holding Scarlett in front of the burning city of Atlanta.

Danny's not the first ghost hunter to hate Christmas — Peter Venkman can definitely sympathize. Egon Spengler was also once turned into a ghost for one episode ("Egon's Ghost"), obtaining, among other powers, the ability to sense ghosts.

Shut Up, Hannibal!: In "Claw of the Wild", Danny hits Walker from behind with a ghost ray so that he won't be able to get to Sam and Wolf. Walker, as per usual, attempts to flaunt his moral superiority over Danny, and Danny decides to throw this hypocrisy back in Walker's face before freezing him and throwing him back into the Ghost Zone.

"I TECHNUS, MASTER OF ALL THINGS ELECTRONIC AND BEEPING!" He is also the one who came closest to succeeding in his plans.

Ember.

Vlad, unfortunately, falls under this during Season 3.

The Fenton Family themselves. Or at least Jack - EVERYTHING they make has a "Fenton" somewhere in it, and half his inventions have his face on them somewhere. He even has a toaster that makes toast SHAPED like him!

Status Quo Is God: There are numerous times that Danny's parents find out that he is actually Danny Phantom, the ghost vigilante they keep constantly chasing. And whenever they do find out, their only reactions are to be extremely accepting and supportive of their son... Yet for some absurd reason he continually wipes their memories, only ensuring that he will have to keep constantly hiding the truth from them and get constantly chased by his own flesh-and-blood. He finally comes to his senses at the end of Phantom Planet.

Stereo Fibbing: Danny and Jazz do this in "Secret Weapons. "You two know each other?" "No/Yes!" "Yes/No!" "Sorta!"

It does have a continuity/Myth Arc, but the general formula of the show is followed in a strict pattern: Danny and co. have some personal problem, a ghost appears and somehow meddles in their personal problem, Danny goes ghost and beats the crap out of it, sends it to the Phantom Zone, and solves the personal problem, usually inspired by the battle.

Danny: There's a rhythm to these things. Ghosts attack, we exchange witty banter, I kick ghost butt, and we all go home having learned a valuable lesson about honesty, or some such nonsense.

Something Only They Would Say: In "Splitting Images", Danny, while stuck in Poindexter's body in the Ghost Zone, contacts Sam and Tucker through the mirror to help him out. Since he looks like a green-eyed Poindexter, Sam tells him to prove his identity.

Danny: In Second Grade, Tucker threw up in your lunchbox, but he told you Ricky Marsh did it.

Sam: (small gasp. angry) What?! I kicked him off the monkey bars for that! (points to Tucker) It was you?! (gasp of realization)

Sam and Tucker: Danny?

Something We Forgot: This happened to Mr. Lancer in the episode "Control Freaks". He was locked in the janitor's room, presumably for the entire weekend, with the janitor opening up to drop off supplies and then shutting the door.

Straw Vegetarian: Goth girl Sam tries to get meat banned from the school café in favor of her parody vegetarian diet of turf (yes turf, as in grass) — the result is mass protests from both sides. In this case, though, the trope is invoked as one half of an affectionate parody of Meat Versus Veggies.

Executed mercilessly. Sam has even used the word "radical" on at least one occasion.

"Stellar" has also been used a few times.

Training from Hell: Sam did this to Tucker in "Micro-Management". Well, it's pretty hellish when you take into consideration he doesn't have superpowers and is only training to pass a school fitness test.

Tucker:[while climbing up a rope] Like chinning up to a killer bird's nest on a tree branch of empty lies!

Tranquil Fury: Danny entered a very coherent rage during his first true confrontation with Spectra.

Ms. Spectra: Can I help you? Danny: No, I'm sure you can't.

Triple Shifter: "Of course it was a late night. Every ghost I know — and about a million I don't — are loose!"

Truth in Television: Vlad can't buy the Packers because "the Packers are owned by the city of Green Bay, and they won't sell them to me!" The Packers franchise is collectively owned by most of the population of Green Bay, and their original contract (which was grandfathered in and isn't allowed anymore) specifies that no single person can ever own more than 5 percent of the team and that the only way to change the ownership by-laws is to disband the team.

Though in the first episode, we get a brief glimpse of more staff members at the Teachers Lounge All-Meat Buffet.

Well, technically there's also Principal Ishiyama, but she does less teaching and more trying to run a school in the midst of ghost chaos...

U

Undeathly Pallor: Averted/played with: Danny's skin colour sometimes changes when he goes ghost, but to a healthy tan, not a sickly pale.

Untrusting Community: Danny had a serious public image problem through most of the series. This changes by the end, though - not only is his ghost half accepted as a hero, he has rabid fans. And plushies.

Uptown Girl: Danny and Sam, though Sam doesn't really care much about her family's comically vast fortune, rarely tells anyone about it, and the series itself only occasionally draws attention to it. Despite that, it's pretty clear that Sam's parents don't exactly like her friends, and the various unexplainable ghost related hijinks that happen over the course of the series don't help much.

Urine Trouble: In the Christmas special, we find out that a dog peed on Danny when he was an infant while his parents argued about whether or not Santa exists.

Tucker: Caught up in their riff on that jolly old fellow, they didn't see Danny's white Christmas turn yellow.

Vlad during the first two seasons was a Magnificent Bastard and a very competent arch-foe with an often sympathetic side. But in the third season, he became a shallow crook with little redeeming qualities; his final plan was to force the world to let him save it from a giant meteor in exchange for world domination (an agenda that was poorly conceived) and 500 billion dollars...as if he wasn't already filthy stinking rich!

The Fright Knight suffered from a mild case of this. In his first episode, he's the most powerful and terrifying villain Danny had ever faced; in later episodes, he's always relegated to the role of The Dragon. He's still just as powerful as he always was, but seems weaker in comparison to Pariah Dark and later Dark Danny.

Villain with Good Publicity: Vlad is a billionaire celebrity and later becomes mayor of Amity Park. Granted, he possessed the voters to win, but he keeps his position for the remainder of the season.

Wham Episode: "Public Enemies". While Danny's exploits up to this point were mostly low-key, below the radar, and ignorable, now the entire town is aware of his existence, and ghosts have become very real for them.

In the opening scene of "Control Freaks", Danny fights off a horde of ghostly tattoos by creating an energy sphere around himself; the sphere breaks out and swats the tattoos away. We never see this power on the show again.

Due to the series being cut off while in its prime, we never found out what became of the Crown of Fire Vlad obtained after Danny defeated Pariah Dark.

In that same episode, the Fentons and Valerie's father Damon launch a probe into the Ghost Zone. What became of this probe and whatever role it would serve would never be revealed.

What Measure Is a Non-Human?: To convince Valerie to help him save Danielle from Plasmius, Danny tries to make her see she can't in good conscience harm her because she's half human.

Valerie: She is a ghost, and I destroy ghosts. Danny: Fine, destroy ghosts! But can you really take part in destroying a human?

What the Hell, Hero?: Sam delivers a scathing one to Danny in Phantom Planet when he is perfectly content to give up his powers and stand back as ghosts terrorize the city, Vlad extorts the city, and Danny gets to be 'normal'.

White Hair, Black Heart: Vlad. He is a bit old for this character type, but still dapper. His hair turned white when he got his ghost powers, the time he turned evil, so it doubly fits. Danny, on the other hand, is a subversion since his ghost form has white hair. Also played straight with Dark Danny.

"Splitting Images" (DP)/"Trading Faces" (TRG Season 5): Ghost takes human's place by trapping him in another dimension via a Magic Mirror.

"Fanning the Flames"/"Banshee Bake A Cherry Pie" (Season 2): Ghost Idol Singer who attacks with Magic Music puts The Hero under a love spell to stop him from interfering with the big concert where her Evil Plan goes into motion.

"The Fright Before Christmas"/"Xmas Marks The Spot" (Season 1): The Grinch of a hero learns to love Christmas.

"Micro Management"/"Short Stuff" (Season 4): Incredible Shrinking Man plot while running from a ghost and trying to get home to get unshrunk.

"Frightmare"/"Mr. Sandman, Dream Me A Dream" (Season 1): Ghost tries to put everyone to sleep so they can dream forever.

Wholesome Crossdresser: Sam wears Danny's clothes twice. Sure, it was all for distraction purposes. Also Tucker in "Control Freaks" who seemed to enjoy wearing Sam's clothes. And Danny at one point in "Splitting Images". In "Teacher of the Year", Mr. Lancer's "sister" is actually just him in a dress.

Dark Danny. Though the whole thing about watching helplessly as your family and friends get blown up and getting your super-powered ghost half removed did give a good start... but he only started a murderous rampage after getting separated from his human half. His past self is extremely horrified.

Vlad may also apply as he seemed to be largely content with his life before the accident.

When we see him without his powers in "Masters of All Time" he's a pretty normal guy, but seeing Maddie's Ghost hunting gear sends him into a rage.

Poor Tucker gets this twice.

Wrap It Up: Due to the series having its plug pulled, Phantom Planet was designed as a last minute Grand Finale. Although many found it to be an epic series finale, many others felt that there were a few loose ends left untied.

X

X-Ray Sparks: Vlad electrocutes Danny in one episode, resulting in this briefly.

Community

Tropes HQ

TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy